I've read a few too many of books using the same time travel device to highlight a horrible moment in history, and the plot here is fairly obvious and predictable since it's aimed at children, but even as I cynically held those thoughts in my head the ending still grabbed me by the throat and shook me. Can't argue with results.I had not heard of this 1988 book previously and only picked it up as homework of sorts for a 2022 book I do want to read, Attack of the Black Rectangles by Amy Sarig King...

I was 14 when I read my first holocaust book – Leon Uris’ Mila 18 and was in much distress for very long because of the Nazi savagery and Jewish despondency I was exposed to in the book. Although I have since been drawn to literature from that period, I feel that the gory in The Devil’s Arithmetic is too harsh for anyone under 12. The heart rending portrayal of children in Mapping the Bones, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, Anne Frank’s Diary, The Book Thief, The girl in the red coat in Schindle...

“Cine nu își cunoaște istoria este obligat sa o repete.” Hannah, o fetița ebraica, sărbătorește Sederul împreuna cu părinții, bunicii și fratele ei.Ea nu înțelege motivul păstrării acestei tradiții, motivul pentru care trebuie ca oamenii sa își amintească tragedii din trecut. Aici, acum, totul e pașnic iar singurele griji pe care le are sunt in legătura cu activitatile pe care trebuie sa le facă, deși ea nu are niciun chef. Numai ca ea nu știe ca totul e pe cale sa se schimbe. Este rugată sa des...

Hannah and her family are celebrating Passover. When Hannah opens the door to look for Elijah, she is transported back in time to 1942 Poland, as the Nazi's are rounding up the Jews for the final solution. Chaya (Hannah) tries to warn her family and friends what is happening, but to no avail as history marches ahead anyway. This book is primarily aimed at younger readers. Yolen's afterword is a highlight.

My son came home last week and said “mom can you believe my language arts teacher is making us read a book this close to the end of the school year?” Being the book nerd I am I became excited and asked what’s the name of the book and he says “The Devils Arithmetic” well I had never heard of the book and decided to read up on it. After reading the synopsis I immediately put the book on hold to pick up the following day. I read it in one fell swoop! I cried like baby snot cried! I read everything ...

This was a foundational book for me. I first read it when I was around the age of 12 and it sent me on a research deep-dive about the Holocaust that I've never been able to escape. I related to Hannah at the beginning of the book, tired of always remembering, finding all the pomp and ceremony of Jewish holidays, particularly the Passover Seder, to be boring. This wasn't the first time I'd encountered the Holocaust, but it was the first time it had been so immersive and real. I loved everything f...

This semester I am requiring my students to read The True Story of Hansel and Gretel, a novel takes place in Poland during World War II. The good news is that my students love the book; in fact, several of them are reading ahead. The shocking fact, the bad news, is what they don’t know. It is not just knowledge of history that they lack; it is knowledge of basic geography. God bless PowerPoint and blackboard. To be fair, my students do ask intelligent questions, yet the lack of basic knowledge i...

I wish I could say I liked this book. I thought I would. I know it's critically acclaimed and a well-known story. But it left me with a bad taste in my mouth.The book is meant to educate young people about the Holocaust, but it had a lot of historical inaccuracies. The idyllic shtetl world at the beginning of Chaya's story would have been long gone by 1942 -- by that time, all the Jews left alive in Poland were in ghettos, in concentration camps or in hiding. Lublin, the place Chaya supposedly c...

I wasn't really sure what to make of this book when I first saw it, but after having read it, I would say that I am glad that I did. This is one of those books that really makes you look at things from a different perspective. I can relate to Hannah, because I remember being 13 and having little patience with traditions and customs, and just wanting to hang out with my friends. But given the experience Hannah had, she was able to see things in a new way, and was granted a gift, even though it wa...

This is a marvelous book for young adults, although I wouldn’t recommend it as their first introduction to the holocaust because it portrays the atrocities committed in a starkly realistic way. And, unlike some young adult books that I enjoyed as young as nine or ten years old, I wouldn’t give this to kids until they were at least 12.It is a wonderful story and, because the main character, an American Jewish girl who’s 12 years old, is from the present time (even though the book was written twen...